In offshore oil exploration, it is often necessary to protect subsea equipment from damage from anchors, fishing nets, ice features or other marine hazards. Equipment protruding from the sea floor in high traffic areas, such as shipping lanes or areas with submarine activity, has an inherent danger of damage to either vessels or the environment due to potential oil spills from damaged equipment.
To date, subsea drilling equipment such as blow-out preventers and well completion equipment, such as “Christmas trees,” have been located at the sea floor level, leaving them exposed and susceptible to damage. The problem is particularly acute in Arctic waters where ice packs and icebergs scour the ocean floor with great force. Consequently, excavations on the ocean floor, called glory holes, have been used to enable blow-out preventers, wellheads and associated well completion equipment to be relocated below ice scour regions or to protect the wellhead from damages from anchors, fishing equipment or shipping hazards. However, glory holes can be expensive to dredge where difficult soil conditions are encountered or the water is deep. Furthermore, the protection provided against scouring by ice is imperfect, as the ice pushes a pile of rubble ahead of it as it scours the ocean floor, and little protection against anchors, fishing nets and the like is provided.
Caissons have also been utilized in the art in an effort to protect subsea equipment from marine hazards. Caissons are generally made from steel or concrete installed below the scour regions in subsea environments.
Unfortunately, even with appropriate protection of subsea equipment leakage of hydrocarbons is still a possibility.
Therefore, a need exists for containment, detection and removal of hydrocarbon leaks by creating a closed environment where leaks can be detected, contained, and mitigated to prevent hydrocarbons from reaching the environment.